Pequot

The Pequot are a tribe of Native Americans that inhabit parts of the US state of Connecticut. The Pequot migrated from the upper Hudson River valley to New England in around 1500, and they survived the smallpox outbreak of 1617-1619 that eradicated many natives in the region. The tribe's leader Sassacus warred with the United Provinces after his predecessor Tatobem was executed in 1633, but the tribe's accidental murder of settlers from England in 1637 led to the "Pequot War" with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1,500 of the 3,000 Pequot tribe members in Connecticut were killed during the war, and many were sold as slaves to rival tribes or to slave traders in Bermuda. By 1910, there were only 66 Pequot people remaining in Connecticut, but the population grew to between 1,000 and 2,000 people in 2000.